Eliezer: This post is an example of how all your goals and everything you’re doing is affected by your existing preferences and biases.
For some reason, you see Peer’s existence as described by Greg Egan as horrible. You propose an insight-driven alternative, but this seems no more convincing to me than Peer’s leg carving. I think Peer’s existence is totally acceptable, and might even be delightful. If Peer wires himself to get ultimate satisfaction from leg carving, then by definition, he is getting ultimate satisfaction from leg carving. There’s nothing wrong with that.
More importantly—no alternative you might propose is more meaningful!
There’s also nothing wrong with being a blob lying down on a pillow having a permanent fantastic orgasm.
The one argument I do have against these preoccupations is that they provide no progress towards avoiding threats to one’s existence. In this respect, the most sensible preoccupation to wire yourself for would be something that involves preserving life, and other creatures’ lives as well, if you care for that as the designer.
Satisfying that, the options are open. What’s really wrong with leg carving?
Eliezer: This post is an example of how all your goals and everything you’re doing is affected by your existing preferences and biases.
For some reason, you see Peer’s existence as described by Greg Egan as horrible. You propose an insight-driven alternative, but this seems no more convincing to me than Peer’s leg carving. I think Peer’s existence is totally acceptable, and might even be delightful. If Peer wires himself to get ultimate satisfaction from leg carving, then by definition, he is getting ultimate satisfaction from leg carving. There’s nothing wrong with that.
More importantly—no alternative you might propose is more meaningful!
There’s also nothing wrong with being a blob lying down on a pillow having a permanent fantastic orgasm.
The one argument I do have against these preoccupations is that they provide no progress towards avoiding threats to one’s existence. In this respect, the most sensible preoccupation to wire yourself for would be something that involves preserving life, and other creatures’ lives as well, if you care for that as the designer.
Satisfying that, the options are open. What’s really wrong with leg carving?